Tuesday, September 18, 2012

To Ice, Or Not To Ice?

I received this delicious, Pineapple Barley tea as a gift a few weeks ago. I love hot tea and have been enjoying this new flavor immensely, even through the summer heat. I always serve tea to my English students, and usually stick to American tea (my students are always interested to see all the different fruit flavors with which Americans contaminate green tea), but this Pineapple Barley was so delicious that I had to share. I'd never had barley tea before, and the pineapple was an extremely bright, unexpected addition.

"Mmmmmmm. Is this Barley tea?" -My student

"Yes, it is! How did you know?" -Me

"Barley tea is very popular in the summer! Sometimes, it's served iced." -My student

Now, I've lived in Japan long enough to know that any time one of my students makes a statement which is preceded by "sometimes," "maybe," "possibly," or "perhaps," I need to pay attention, because said statement is often NOT a maybe/possibly/perhaps situation, but actually a statement of fact. As in, "Maybe this situation with my coworker is very stressful." This is definitely a stressful situation.

The Pineapple Barley tea is from Lupicia, a popular tea shop chain. The super cute mug is from a local shop.

And that's the story of my life in Japan! I bumble around doing something completely incorrect for months, until finally an English student clears up the situation for me. Thank-goodness for my students. I always wonder, in my English classes, who is actually teaching whom?

The weather is finally cooling down outside, and hot tea sounds much more pleasant than iced tea, right now. So tuck this post in your memory for next summer, and serve delicious, iced barley tea!Disclaimer: I do my best to make sure all my information is accurate. However, details may change or I may just be flat-out wrong. Please let me know if something needs a correction. Thank-you!

3 comments:

Hahahaha! Gotta love the recap of conversations with locals! I love the observation about the "maybe, perhaps, possibly" semantics. And iced pineapple barley tea sounds really good... let's definitely tuck that one away for next summer, you and me :)

Why Blog?

This blog is for us, the spouses of American military stationed in Japan (but all are welcome to stop by!). We fell in love with someone amazing, maybe had a kid or two, and then moved to this wonderful but foreign country. We were too jet-lagged to remember anything we learned in orientation classes or maybe all we could think about was that our spouse was deploying next week. Now we are here for several years and have to figure out how to live: with kids, language barrier, deployed spouse, and absent extended families. But we can do it! The outer trappings of Japan may look different, but the core is still the same. Japanese mommies still feed their kids baby food. Japanese look for good deals at the grocery store. Japanese parents want strollers that fit on the trains. Deep down, we all speak the same language.No matter where we live in the world, people are still people. Ganbatte- you can do it!